Mark HarringtonTrash Icon

Toronto native Mark Harrington’s humour needs several listens to be appreciated. As a writer, artist and appropriator of symbols (the cover has Apple’s Trash Icon on it) the humour is more intelligent than, say, Dead Milkmen, nor is it as in your face. But his second album should grow on you like black mildew in a shower, which will only go away with a Scumbuster. An alternative might be Harrington’s voice, which could scrap that black junk off no problem also. Not that it’s horrid, just borrowed from Peter Murphy. While nothing on the album sticks out like a bad pun, “Chain Letter” is by far the most laughable. Trash Icon does end on a bombed joke though, the cover of Gary Numan’s “Cars” is neither appropriated genius nor musically gifted.
(Toronto Experimental Artists)